In Between
by ephemereal
Summary: The table got shorter every year afterwards.


Author's Note: I promise something less depressing in addition for Christmas.

I.

The table got shorter every year afterwards.

II.

Christmas Day 1990, everyone was just happy to be alive. They'd stayed up the remainder of the night, watching Mark's film and drinking shots of Stoli from the bottle Collins had brought. Sometime just before dawn, Maureen and Joanne fell asleep on the couch. Mark went out for coffee and the necessities. Collins sat out on the fire escape.

For the first time that evening, Mimi found herself alone with Roger. Somehow, despite everything that had happened, she found they had nothing to say to each other. In comparison to those few words they'd managed hours before, anything that came to her mind now seemed pointless and a bit foolish.

Wordlessly, she pulled Roger into his bedroom and they sat on the edge of his little campground cot. For once, they didn't close the door. The pink light coming in from the other room as the sun started to rise bathed the entire room in a magical glow. It was too beautiful to miss.

"Mimi?" It seemed like hours since they'd spoken.

She shushed him with her lips against his, and her hands in his hair. He was trembling still, drained by emotion and lack of sleep. She wanted more than anything to tell him everything was fine, that the worst of it was over now. But she knew that it wasn't true. Couldn't lie anymore. So she kissed him instead, long and tender, until the sun was shining yellow through windows, and Mark was back with a bag from the corner gas station.

They had Pop Tarts for breakfast that day. Pop Tarts and Instant Coffee, and nothing had ever tasted more like a banquet.

III.

By the next year, Collins was already too sick to leave the hospital, even for a few days at Christmas. Mimi stole a 'borrowed' a costume from the Cat Scratch's Santa Baby, and dressed up to visit on Christmas morning. She dragged a reluctant Roger with her, and Mark brought his camera. Joanne baked all-organic cookies, and Maureen dressed up as an elf.

In the hallway outside the door marked 613, Roger broke down. It was the first time since April that he'd let anyone see him cry, let alone the whole group of them.

"I hate hospitals," he muttered by way of excuse. "Especially in the winter."

He didn't have to tell them that he couldn't stand the thought of another loss so soon. That in the beep of heart monitors from open-doored rooms, he heard his own end coming. Mimi brushed a finger along the line of his jaw and kissed him again, the way she had that night. The way she always did, now, when reality got too close for comfort.

IV.

On Christmas Day 1992, by some freak of nature, there was no snow. Maureen said it was Angel's doing, which made her and Mimi tear up. Roger turned his amp up louder. Joanne stared silently at the picture of Collins that now sat beside Angel's on the kitchen counter.

"Close up," said Mark, pointing his camera out the open window, "on the dry ground outside. Not very festive today, is it?" But then he turned it off, and closed the window, and plastered on a fake smile for everyone else's sake.

They baked cookies in the loft's little kitchenette that day, and ordered in Chinese because no other restaurants were delivering. Roger played Christmas carols on his guitar, and Mimi danced with Maureen because Angel wasn't there to do it anymore.

By the end of the night, the five of them ended up all squeezed onto the ratty old sofa, watching Mark's new film for that year. It was the first time no one had to sit on the floor.

V.

Sometime during the year in-between, Maureen and Joanne left in their own way. Maureen decided she was sick of performing on street corners. Joanne was offered a transfer with a sizeable raise. No matter how profusely they apologized, the outcome was the same: they ended up in L.A., and the loft's table wasn't even needed anymore for Christmas dinner.

Money was short, and time even shorter, so they didn't bother with the formalities anymore. There was no point in presents; none of them could afford anything they actually wanted, and what was the point in having more possessions they didn't need?

Mimi burned the letter from her doctor that came in the mail that morning, and sat in Roger's lap as they watched _It's a Wonderful Life _on the tv Joanne had left them when she'd moved. She had to close her eyes when she kissed him now, just so he wouldn't see her cry.

VI.

By Christmas 1994, Roger had no one to kiss, and he and Mark actually considered making the drive up to Scarsdale to see family. That plan lasted until they got the two voicemails that had been blinking at them from the machine, and Roger broke down again. Somehow, in the minutes that felt like hours and the hours that felt like days spent sitting by a hospital bed, he'd lost all his inhibitions about crying.

"If this is gonna be my last Christmas, I sure as hell don't wanna spend it being told what all I should regret," said Roger, and Mark looked like he might cry too.

So they stayed in, and ordered Chinese again, and ignored the phone calls that kept coming. Roger toyed with his guitar for a few seconds before saying that his hands ached, and falling asleep on the couch. Looking at him, Mark wondered if he might not wake up again.

VII.

Christmas Eve 1995, five years since they'd become a family, Mark stood on the roof alone and read Joanne's yearly Christmas letter. She and Maureen were well. They were talking about a baby. They were sorry they hadn't seen him since the funeral, but things had gotten busy.

He smiled to himself, and pictured Maureen wearing reindeer antlers to her new job the local newspaper. She always had had a knack for storytelling. She just hadn't seen it in herself.

Mark had always felt that their little family was closest at Christmas. And maybe they still were.

As a snowflake landed on his nose, he leaned over the wall at the edge of the roof. _Angel_, it said there in graffiti. If he closed his eyes, he could picture Mimi climbing up on the windowsill of the loft, and jumping to lift the spray-paint high enough. If he listened hard enough, he could almost hear her laughing.


End file.
